10 November 2011 1:12 PM

It's without exaggeration to say that the European Union is at crisis point. Students of political and economic history might well be told in years to come that this week in November was a watershed for European monetary union – in the form of the single currency at least – and even for the EU itself.

Unusually warm autumn sunshine could not dispel the bleakest of moods in Brussels this morning, even before the Vice-President for Economic and Monetary Affairs sat down to deliver the EU's latest growth forecasts.

Italian bond yields had yesterday sailed above the 7 per cent mark, leading many – despite some intervention from the European Central Bank today - to conclude there is no way back for the Union's third-largest economy but to seek a bailout.

One which would be all but impossible for the EU and IMF to deliver and which would therefore place impossible strains on the economic structure underlying the Union.

Then Olli Rehn delivered his statement: 'Growth has stalled in Europe, and there is a risk of a new recession.'

07 November 2011 2:06 PM

Since I compared the European Union leadership's consultation of member states to the tea-making offers of Father Ted's Mrs Doyle, evidence gathers apace, as if more was needed, that the European Union's relationship with democracy is becoming ever-more light-hearted.

At the time it was small-fry Slovakia getting the 'Oh yes it is!' treatment from the EU and losing its government.

Since then 'they'* have hooked Papandreou off-stage, with his dangerous ideas of asking the Greek people if they fancy signing away the next ten years of their economic lives to the EU's austerity demands.

And 'they' are in the process of making sure he is replaced with their own straight man – former European Central Bank bigwig Loukas Papademos. This prompted a few other commentators to question the EU's relationship with democracy:

Next up, old Silvio. Now you might not rate him as the most cerebral of politicians, or the safest pair of hands for the Italian economy. But he was, amazingly, elected and remains so. And he'd go down a treat at the The Cliffs Pavilion, Southend-on-Sea.

But 'they' are trying to make sure he's not around much longer so that someone who thinks the right way can force through the austerity measures 'they' want.

12 October 2011 12:19 PM

What's the point - you might wonder - of asking for approval, if you are not going to brook refusal? Of asking only because you will keep asking until you get the answer you want?

The implacable internal logic of the European Union's instinct for self-preservation has thrown up yet another victim – the Slovakian government this time.

Opposition parliamentarians objected to bailing out fellow EU economies which are at the same time massively richer and more indebted than Slovakia, and voted down approval for enhancing the bloc's rescue fund.

But it goes without saying that the political drama in Bratislava will not disrupt enhancements to the European Financial Stabilty Fund for long.

The Slovak parliament is likely to hold a second vote later this week, and is already being chivvied to give the right answer by the quizmasters - presidents of the European Commission and European Council, Barroso and van Rompuy.

The pressure EU leaders are exerting on members to toe the line over bailouts is reminiscent of the ratification process for the EU's previous constitutional revolution.

A treaty was put in front of member countries in 2005 and rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands. The EU hierarchy let the dust settle then came back with more or less the same treaty a couple of years later and told everyone to sign on the dotted line.

Ireland spotted the remarkable similarity and rejected it in a referendum in 2008. Come back when you're going to give us the right answer, said EU leaders, and Ireland dutifully did so in December 2009.

If there had been more room for internal dissent in the last 20 years, the bloc might have avoided its current pickle.

But as with Mrs Doyle's offer of tea in Ireland's most famous comedy export, in this game there is no room for the wrong answer.

10 May 2011 3:35 PM

Sometimes it takes a venture into foreign lands to bring home a few truths.

Three weeks in Canada certainly made me realise a few unpleasant realities about our own country and its attitudes to money and business.

1. We have got to stop moaning about the price of everything. Except property maybe. And beer. Most other things are cheaper in the UK than in almost every other developed country I’ve visited - especially consumer goods and groceries, even (dare I say it) utility bills.

2. Inflation is no worse here than the story the official figures tell – there is no conspiracy to cover up the real cost of living. 'It is what it is,' the Canadians often say, which just about encompasses the correctly phlegmatic approach to phantom injustices.

01 April 2011 12:19 PM

I’ll miss Oddbins if it goes. The one in Oxford featured as a minor step on my stairway to adulthood.

In my first term at university I was invited round for dinner by an older, and therefore very glamorous, student.

Even in 1980s Chorley, I’d picked up that when this happens you take a bottle of wine. From the TV probably.

I’d never seen an Oddbins before, let alone smelt one – and the one in Oxford, nestled into the ancient stone of some college building or other, had a very particular fusty aroma that added to the mystique.

I have a Kindle, a generous birthday gift from family, hinted at with great subtlety. And it's a lovely bit of kit. But I'm slightly ashamed to say, I haven't really been seduced by it yet - to adopt Amazon's passion-based marketing riff.

20 January 2011 3:57 PM

As soon as I had made the train booking from London to Hebden Bridge in the Pennines the other day, I realised I had made a mistake. No, not in choosing to visit Hebden Bridge.

I'd panicked: I had been confronted with the prospect of having to pay £244 for East Coast's walk-on 'anytime return' if I didn't book the advance tickets, and who knew how long those would remain available.

So I got them. 'Cheap advance singles' - an absolute steal at £44.50 each way, or nearly £90 fully three weeks before date of travel. But at least I'd get on the train and have a seat.

Almost immediately I realised I'd chosen the return leg wrongly. Too late. A simple mistake and I lost £44.50. Because they are of course non-refundable, and non-exchangeable in any meaningful sense (one cannot change stations or the date).

Had these been the cheap tickets that we hear so much about from train companies, I would take it on the chin. I can get over losing say £25, just: such tickets were cheap on account of their inflexibility - or vice versa.

30 April 2010 12:15 PM

'The unusual levy - thought to be the first time visitors from a particular country have been targeted in this way - could raise £25,000-a-year towards the upkeep of footpaths and supporting wildlife projects.'

Quite why or how Japanese visitors alone would be levied on entry to the Lakes is not explained but that aside the idea raises some issues I've been pondering for a while.

On regular visits to Cumbria and the Lake District, I'm struck by the seasonal impact of massive tourist numbers.

Our rail service is the laughing stock of Europe. It is run by operating companies who exploit the growing demand for rail travel by ratcheting fares to gross levels while herding their passengers onto overcrowded trains that tend to smell of excrement.